Everyone plays office chair bowling
In the first round, Ben goes first for the team of two, pushing a red chair reasonably close to the edge of the stage on the far left. Matt goes first for the team of three, aggressively pushing his black chair with the aim of knocking Ben’s red chair off the stage, but actually just moving it closer to the edge of the stage and causing his own chair to fall off, losing his team a point. Hayley goes next for the team of two, pushing a red chair very close to the edge. Tom steps up next for the team of three and pushes his black chair between the two red ones, slightly knocking one of them, but not causing either to fall off, and not getting as close to the edge as either of them. Ben responds for the team of two with an aggressive play, pushing their last red chair directly into Tom’s black one, and causing both to fall off the stage (losing a point for both teams). Abby steps up last for the team of three, and aims for the left-most red chair, which she successfully knocks off the stage, deducting a point for the other team. The team of three end up with a chair 40.5cm away from the edge of the stage, while the team of two have one just 32cm away from the edge, so the round ends with a score of -1 for the team of two, and -2 for the team of three.
In the second round, Matt starts for the team of three by pushing a chair to a reasonable distance from the edge in the centre of the stage. Hayley responds for the team of two with a decent push that gets slightly closer to the edge, before Abby then uses her chair to slightly nudge Matt’s chair closer to the edge. Ben tries the same tactic on his turn with Hayley’s chair, but he accidentally pushes slightly too hard and knocks Hayley’s chair off the stage, losing his team a point. Tom repeats the same strategy as the others had used, this time pushing his chair into Abby’s, which in turn nudges Matt’s chair a little closer to the edge. Hayley then gets aggressive for the team of two, using a run up to launch her last red chair into all of the black chairs, knocking them all over and causing two to fall off the stage altogether, which deducts two points from the team of three. This move also results in the team of two having the closest chair to the edge of the stage, so they gain a point, and the round ends with the team of two on -1 and the team of three on -4.
At the start of the third and final round, Tom points out that the only chance his team has is if they knock every single red chair off the stage and also end up with a black chair still on the stage. In an attempt to prevent this happening, Ben starts out for the team of two by playing it safe and just pushing his chair a short distance across the stage. Abby goes first for the team of three and manages to roll her chair quite close to the edge of the stage. Hayley then makes another aggressive play, presumably attempting to knock Abby’s chair off, but goes too hard and just tips her own red chair over. Matt responds with an aggressive push towards Ben’s safety chair, but at such an extreme angle he misses and launches his own chair off the stage, losing a point for the team of three. Ben then plays it safe again with his final chair, pushing it even more gently than the first one. The team of three then devise the cunning strategy of putting someone in their final chair, pushing them over the line, and then letting them manually move the chair around the stage to knock all of the red chairs off. Paul confirms that this is allowed as long as the person in the chair does not touch the floor. Abby takes a seat in the chair, and Tom pushes her across the line. She then shunts the chair around on the stage using her body weight, allowing her to reach and push all of the red chairs off the stage (deducting three points from the team of two), while also gaining a point for the team of three by ending up with the only chair on the stage. The round ends with a tie, as both teams have -4 points.
To decide the game, Hayley and Matt must both simultaneously push one chair each, and whoever gets closest to the edge of the stage wins. Matt pushes his black chair carefully and it ends up just halfway across the stage, while Hayley goes too hard and her red chair falls off the stage. The team of three therefore wins the task and earns 3 points, while the team of two earns 2 points.
(Written by Will G and proofread by Karl Craven)
(Illustrations collected by JoGo & Will G and adjusted by David Fuller)
